TECHNICAL TRAINING. 


AN ADDRESS 

DELIVERED BEFORE THE 

Alumni Association of Lehigh Uniyersity, 

JUNE 20, 1883, 

By THOMAS M. DROWNS!, 

0 \ 

SECRETARY OF, THE 

American Institute of Mining Engineers, 

Easton, Pa. 


PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY. 









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TECHNICAL TRAINING. 

AN ADDRESS 

DELIVERED BEFORE THE 

Alumni Association of Lehigh University, 

JUNE 20, 1883, 

By THOMAS M. DROWN, 

SECRETARY OF THE 

American Institute of Mining Engineers, 

Easton, Pa. 

PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY. 


BETHLEHEM, PA.: 

H. T. CLAUDER. 
1883 . 


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TECHNICAL TRAINING. 


The part which the natural sciences of physics and 
chemistry play in our every-day life comprises about 
all that makes life practically worth living. A moment’s 
reflection will convince one that to the physicist or engi¬ 
neer we owe all our methods of rapid communication 
and transportation, as well as the utilization and adapt¬ 
ation of power; and to the chemist we owe our supplies 
of metals and other necessaries of modern life. Tech¬ 
nical schools have for their object the teaching of these 
sciences, with the direct purpose of their application to 
the well-being, the pleasure, the comfort, and the con¬ 
venience of mankind. We will devote this hour to 
the inquiry how this object can be best attained. 

Empiricism is the foundation of all art and manufac¬ 
ture. Nearly all the early discoveries in the arts were 
the result of accident or hap-hazard experiment. Use¬ 
ful results, which could be regularly reproduced, gave 
value to discovery and dignity to the discoverer. 

It would be interesting—to take an illustrative in¬ 
stance—if we knew the circumstances connected with 
the discovery of metallic iron. We can well imagine 
that a fire, large and intense enough to reduce iron 
from its ore, must often have been made in accidental 
contact with surface ore, and that the presence of the 
metal in the ashes must have attracted attention. This 
observation once made, there would follow a series of 





4 


experiments to determine the conditions under which 
the metal was produced, and the substances necessary 
for its production. It would not long escape intelligent 
observation that a certain red or brown earth, or may be 
a black rock, was the substance which yielded the metal, 
and that fire was the necessary condition of its formation. 
Then would, doubtless, follow many fruitless experi¬ 
ments with rocks and earths of similar appearance, 
until finally, the experimenters would learn to distin¬ 
guish by the appearance, weight, color, etc., the depos¬ 
its which contained iron from those which did not. 
But the iron thus accidentally produced—a mixture of 
metal, cinder, and ashes—was of no value until further 
experiment revealed the fact that the metal could, when 
hot, be united, by hammering, into one mass, with the 
separation of cinder and other extraneous matter. 
The discovery of this property of iron, as notable as 
that of its production from the ore, prompted still fur¬ 
ther experiment. The irregularity of the product 
would suggest the more perfect control of the fire, 
and small furnaces would be built with manifest advan¬ 
tage. Again, it would be found that ores from differ¬ 
ent localities behaved differently in the furnace or gave 
iron of different properties; and the best and most 
easily worked ores w'ould be carried to distant furnaces, 
or the iron smelters would move to the vicinity of the 
best ores and build their furnaces there. In the course 
of time it would be noted that the iron was not uniform 
in hardness, and an accident would be sure to reveal 
the fact that sometimes the metal, when suddenly 
cooled in water, would become intensely hard. This 
new line of investigation would result in the more or 
less regular and controlled production of steel. 


5 


As the result of all this experiment certain favored 
regions would become celebrated for the manufacture 
of superior utensils and weapons of iron and steel, and 
.certain men, more than usually intelligent or experi¬ 
enced, would become famous for their skill. 

This was the school in which were trained the 
famous masters, who by work at the forge and anvil 
made themselves names which history passes down by 
the side of princes. 

In museums of medieval art we see specimens of 
smith’s work which excite our wonder and admiration. 
These were made by the masters at the forge with in¬ 
telligent, patient, and often loving labor. We see the 
sword which was carried and used by some warrior of 
old still fit for new conquests; we see the strong box, 
with cunning lock, in which some castle-robber kept 
his treasure; and we see the delicately-wrought screen 
of leaves and flowers, hammered from the soft and 
willing iron, which found its appropriate place in a 
cathedral. 

In those days there were no technical schools, and, 
it may be asked whether, in such arts, we derive any 
practical benefit from school teaching. Is not rather 
the pupil’s place at the master’s side taking lessons, 
hammer in hand, while the master directs the blows? 
It may be safely answered that no system of class 
teaching, which modern experience or necessity has 
devised, can impart that subtle element of genius with 
which great minds, full of enthusiasm, inspire their lov¬ 
ing pupils. Class teaching is a necessity in our day of 
general education, and the best that the teacher can 
do, in many cases, is to ignore individual differences, and 
to bring his pupils all to the same level in knowledge. 


6 


It is a machine-like process that aims at a good, uni¬ 
form product. The enthusiasm begot of the intimate 
relations of teacher and pupil must be subordinated to 
the general good of a larger number. The loss of this 
personal enthusiasm, while much to be deplored, is not 
without its compensations. The fact that say a hun¬ 
dred young men are taught where but one was taught 
before, not only multiplies the actual number of edu¬ 
cated men but renders the evolution of great minds 
more probable. In the arts which are less capable of 
formulation the master system still survives. In paint¬ 
ing and music there is a first, or mechanical, stage 
which can be learned from competent teachers in 
classes; but there is a stage beyond this, where the 
inspired master speaks a language which only the 
worthy pupil understands. Genius cannot be taught, 
but it may fall like the prophet’s mantle on him whose 
gaze can follow his master into the celestial fire and 
see the forms of beauty and strength. 

There is also in all the practical arts a region beyond 
formulas. It is in this region, shut out as by a cloud 
from the sight of the multitude, that the prophets live, 
spending their time in translating eternal truths into 
the language of men. 

But, further, it is impossible to conceive of a school 
in the day of purely empirical knowledge. Art is 
appropriately taught in the shop; science, or classified 
knowledge, belongs in the school. It is nowadays 
rather the fashion to admire the works of the past, 
and to mourn over the degeneracy of modern art. It 
is true that the workmanship of old was often more 
thorough and complete than we find it in our day, not 


7 


because the art was better understood, but because 
more time was taken to it. Time has increased in 
value, and it does not now pay to linger over the 
manufacture of a cabinet or table. 

The mistake is often made of comparing the indus¬ 
trial arts of to-day with the fine arts of centuries past. 
Chairs, and tables, and carpets, and clocks belong to 
the necessary furniture of every-day life. Shall we 
mourn over the fact that they are now made simply 
and cheaply because we find that some of our ancestors 
lavished ornaments on their furniture, and studded 
their clocks with jewels? Does any one suppose the 
mass of the people of that day lived with these artistic 
surroundings ? Fine art is not limited to paintings 
and sculpture, and in our day, we too, when time and 
wealth permit, refine our household goods into works 
of beauty. 

There is a good deal of nonsense talked about 
“ lost arts.” There have been very few arts lost which 
were worth keeping. Disused arts are abundant 
enough, and may be revived if the demand arises. It 
is safe to say that the modern workman could imitate 
and improve upon any of the works of medieval art 
in metal or wood if he thought it worth while. Do 
we not hear rumors of modern enterprise which can 
supply genuine antiquities fresh from the factory? 

The medieval workman, should he return to the 
scene of his earthly labor, would find himself unable 
to compete with the modern mechanic in his own art. 
His hand might retain its old cunning, and his soul be 
full of high purpose, but his forge and work-bench 
could not compete with the machine shop and saw 
mill. 


8 


The fine arts may rise and fall and rise again, but 
in the industrial arts there is steady progress. 

How then have schools arisen ? In the course of 
time as facts accumulated, and when it was found 
by the pupils who journeyed from one master to 
another, that the explanations of well-known facts 
were nearly as numerous as the masters, the necessity 
of classification arose to develop some order out of 
the tangle of facts, dhis is the period when schools 
appear, when men drop their tools to think over their 
work, and compare it with the work of others. The 
school is at the start an annex of the shop, having for 
its object the systematic arrangement of the facts 
which the shop supplies. But the school cannot long 
remain the patient handmaid of the shop. Facts 
developed by accident or experiment come too slowly 
to supply the mental machinery which has been put 
in motion, and the imagination supplies the facts which 
the mind demands—prophecies of discovery which 
experiment confirms or refutes. Now begins the era 
of intelligent investigation, and we have more than an 
industrial school which deals with the best practice, we 
have a school of science which seeks the causes of 
things. All technical schools go through this course 
of development—in engineering, chemistry, metal¬ 
lurgy, architecture, and even medicine, for it too is 
largely an experimental science. 

The school, born of the shop, in time attempts to 
control its operations, and the inevitable conflict, so 
called, of theory and practice arises. 

When sanitary science began to direct attention to 
the necessity of a better drainage system for houses, 
the workman in solder and pipes defiantly placed over 


9 


his door the sign “Practical Plumber.” Scientific 
agriculturists likewise developed the “practical farmer.” 
There is scarcely a trade which has not taken alarm 
at the tendency of modern investigation, and many a 
craftsman fortifies himself against anticipated attacks 
in announcing himself; for instance, as a “practical 
hatter,” a “practical cobbler,” or a “practical bell- 
hanger.” 

Nor is it only in the trades that this reactionary 
tendency is noticed. Even in the professions which 
deal mainly with matters of mind or emotion we 
meet the suggestion of—the “practical lawyer,” the 
“practical physician,” the “practical politician,” or 
even the “practical theologian.” In matters of fine 
art too, it is often felt (but less often confessed) that 
the tendency is to expression beyond the comprehen¬ 
sion of the layman, who would gladly welcome the 
revival of what he might call the “practical painter,” 
or the “practical musician.” 

The phrase “conflict of theory and practice” is often 
used without definite meaning. Muscular labor is 
always conservative, and the conservatism is in direct 
proportion to the physical strength involved. He who 
works with heavy tools is more set in his ways than 
he who works with lighter ones. Manual dexterity is 
the transition from muscle to mind. Mental labor, on 
the other hand, is always radical, and is apt to forget 
the things behind in its striving for things ahead. The 
“conflict” is the inertia of labor opposing the restless 
advance of mind; it is in the nature of a check or 
brake which practice puts on the train of thought. 
Viewed in this light there can be no victory on either 
side, for both work together for the best result. Life 


IO 


would be the monotonous affair that Solomon found 
it “if the thing that hath been is that which shall be, 
and that which is done is that which shall be done 
but worse than this monotony would be the confusion, 
the chaos, that would result if theory proclaimed itself 
independent of practice. Human society has decided 
the former life to be merely dull, but for the latter it 
provides insane hospitals. The conservatism of labor 
is often mentioned with unjust reproach ; we demand 
of labor, accuracy and uniformity, just as we do of 
machines, and we constantly endeavor to eliminate 
irregularities of product by division of labor, or by 
the construction of machines which do not get weary, 
do not go on sprees, or strikes. If, after this narrow 
training, we find that the human machine opposes the 
introduction of new ideas or processes should we be 
surprised? We might as well complain that a horse¬ 
shoe machine would not adapt itself to make pins ! 

It is not unfrequently noticed that men who pride 
themselves on being “practical,” are the most invet¬ 
erate theorists; and equally droll is the quiet confidence 
that the schoolman often has in his ability to work in 
the shop or mill if he wanted to. It needs the personal 
contact of these two classes of men to develop mutual 
confidence and respect, with the elimination of igno¬ 
rance. Happy is the man who combines in himself 
both the knowledge to think and to work. 

We are very fortunate in this country in having a 
society in which the schoolman and craftsman, "the 
engineer and the iron worker, the chemist and the 
furnace man, meet on common ground, without fear 
or jealousy, to learn from one another. No society 
in our day has made more real progress and done 


more good work than the American Institute of Mining 
Engineers. Its Transactions contain the record, side 
by side, of the best practice and the highest scholarship. 
This is the fellowship of theory and practice. 

1 echnical schools are not indigenous in this country, 
they have been transplanted from Europe, and were 
originally formed on German models. The rapid 
development of our mines of the precious metals in 
the West, found us without the necessary technical 
skill to work them advantageously, and we were par¬ 
ticularly deficient, two or three generations ago, in the 
knowledge necessary to work these ores profitably. 
German metallurgists came in large numbers to this 
country, and our young men were sent to German 
mining schools to fit themselves to take charge of 
mines and smelting works. 

Many of us can well recall the young American 
returned to his native shore after a sojourn of two or 
three years abroad. He brought back with him an 
elaborate case of blow-pipe instruments, a collection 
of minerals and hammers, a well-assorted library, 
particularly rich in the German classics, an intimate 
knowledge of foreign social customs, a vocabulary 
liberally enriched in foreign technical terms, and a look 
and an air that seemed to say, “I am ready to show 
you how it is done.” They had no difficulty in securing 
positions to put their knowledge to practical use, and 
while a few of them were successful, it must be confessed 
that many of these young men made lamentable 
failures at the start, causing loss to mine and mill 
owners, and bringing discredit on systematic instruc¬ 
tion. We must also admit that the early graduates of 
our American mining schools were also often unsuc- 


cessful at first. There was evidently something wrong 
either in the works or in the school; and as a conse¬ 
quence, the school teaching of practical science 
sustained a serious check. The schools thought the 
works were jealous and put obstacles in the young 
men’s way, and the shops thought the teaching of the 
schools impracticable, and unfitted the men for work. 
The trouble was simply that the young men had 
studied one side of the subject and attempted to 
practice the other. It was the case of an imperfect 
science attempting to instruct a well-developed art. 
The case was complicated by the fact that the schools 
gave diplomas, asserting the graduates to be “ civil 
engineers,” “mining engineers,” etc., and no wonder 
they thought the faculty knew best on this point. 

Very often the trouble arose from the attempt to 
introduce foreign metallurgical methods into American 
practice, ignoring the fact that mining and smelting 
are primarily economic problems, and that the success¬ 
ful treatment of ores in one locality may be a failure 
in another. It is not in the least soothing to the 
capitalist, who discovers that his metallurgist uses more 
money to get the gold from the ore than it is worth, to 
be told that the process was scientifically correct and 
had been successfully used elsewhere. 

Patience on one side and perseverance on the other 
brought about, at length, a better understanding, and 
the practical man recognized that the graduates of 
the technical schools were the best raw material for 
making promptly managers and superintendents. The 
school learning gave him an advantage at every stage 
of his work over the ordinary workman. This recog¬ 
nition reacted favorably on the schools, and the young 


i3 


men no longer thought their first duty was to instruct, 
but to apply their school knowledge. There is now 
no longer any distrust of the schools on the part of the 
works, in fact we may say that the schools have 
conquered the works, for the practical managers are 
now very generally the graduates of technical schools, 
and are very glad to get young men with technical 
training. They know just how to treat them and 
what kind of work to put them at. More than this: 
these managers begin to discriminate among the 
schools, finding some young men better trained than 
others, and there has thus arisen a beneficial rivalry 
among the schools to give young men the preparation 
best calculated to secure them places for work. Com¬ 
petition in schools is as healthy as competition in trade, 
and it is worth while to discuss the question what is 
the best course to pursue in teaching science as applied 
to the arts. Let us first try to define a technical 
school, or rather to determine its relations to other 
schools. We will begin negatively, and say, 

i st. It is not a school of general culture. We 
must not attempt to crowd too many studies into a 
technical course. The student should, as far as possible, 
have in mind a clear outline of his course from the 
beginning. And yet no greater mistake was ever 
made than that which asserts that the engineer or 
chemist does not need to be liberally educated. In 
the year 1876 there was a discussion in Philadelphia, 
under the auspices of the American Society of Civil 
Engineers and the American Institute of Mining Engi¬ 
neers on the subject of Technical Education. It was 
called by the lamented Alex. L. Holley to consider 
mainly the question whether shop practice should 


14 


precede, follow, or coincide with technical instruction. 
A considerable number of schoolmen, practical engi¬ 
neers, and metallurgists took part in the discussion, and 
nearly all of them insisted that the most important re¬ 
quirement of the engineer was culture. It is a narrow 
life that concerns itself solely with building bridges or 
making analyses. The best professional work is done 
by him whose life is spent in a gentle and cultured 
environment. It is deplorable to find a trained and 
competent engineer unable to write a report clearly 
and correctly. But what else can we expect when 
young men are sent to technical schools instead of to 
high schools and colleges ? A professor in a Hungarian 
mining academy once said: “If there is any study in 
which you are particularly interested don’t make your 
living by it; keep it for a hobby.” This advice does 
not always hold good, but it contains the germ of a 
useful truth, that professional men should have interests 
of an elevated character outside of their daily work. 

2 d. It is not a scientific school, as this term is 
generally used; that is, a school in which the culture 
consists largely in the study of the natural sciences. 

3 d. It is not a school of pure or abstract science. 

4 th. It is not an industrial school in which the 
practice of an art is taught. 

Technical schools are broadly distinguished from 
schools of general culture or science by reason of 
special study for a definite end, and are distinguished 
from schools of abstract science by the element of 
hand-work which enters into them. From industrial 
schools they are distinguished by the element of experi¬ 
ment or investigation. Turning to the positive aspect 
of the subject we say, 


i5 


ist. A technical school is primarily a place for the 
preparation of young men to earn their living in 
engineering, mining, chemistry, etc. Any system 
which overlooks this or makes it of secondary import¬ 
ance is faulty and unjust. Young men are sent to 
these schools with this end definitely in view. It is 
easy for any one to earn his living in mining or engi¬ 
neering with muscle and pick, but schools are estab¬ 
lished to fit him to make a better living with brain and 
pencil. It is the lighter equipment which does the 
most work and earns the most wages. A technical 
school can then be fairly judged by its results, namely, 
the character of its graduates. Are they the better or 
worse fitted for earning their living with their school 
learning than they would have been without ? This is 
a fair test question. And yet most of the teaching in 
the schools is of a preliminary nature. Young grad¬ 
uates must begin at the bottom in practice, but in this 
position they are still generally able to earn something. 
Analytical chemistry is the only branch usually taught 
in the schools which is complete in itself and not 
necessarily preliminary to other work. The analytical 
chemist is, therefore, on graduation fitted to take an 
independent, responsible position. His work, after he 
leaves the school, does not differ in kind from that in 
the school. The same may be said in some degree of 
the department of physical testing, though this is less 
developed in the schools than analytical chemistry. 

2 d. A technical school is a device to save time. Man 
has always chafed under his limitations, and failing to 
discover an elixir which should indefinitely prolong 
youthful and vigorous life, he has directed his energies 
to making his allotted span fuller and richer. Man’s 


days are still three-score years and ten, but he now 
crowds as much into them as Methuselah did into his 
nine hundred sixty and nine. It is generally con¬ 
sidered good advice to youth that they emulate the 
career of noble, self-made men, who, beginning life 
poor, with no one to lend a helping hand, have struggled 
with fate and conquered, not merely acquiring wealth 
but knowledge. History is full of the names of such 
men, and the lesson they teach has only too often been 
interpreted to mean that success is conditioned on 
hardship, disappointment, and delay. But do these 
same self-made men thus read the lesson of their 
lives; do they advise young men to turn back and 
follow in their footsteps ? Not so ; rather do they say 
to young men, “ I would not that you be spared 
thought, but I would save you from anxious thought; 

I would not that you be spared work, and even hard¬ 
ship, but I would save you from wearing uncertainty, 
and from that waste of precious time that my educa¬ 
tion has cost me; I would have you not go over the 
ground that I have gone over, but begin in youth 
where I leave off in age.” Thus have acted, if they 
have not thus spoken, those great benefactors of our 
own valley—Asa Packer and Ario Pardee—in founding 
schools for technical education, that young men, without 
means, might not lose time in fitting themselves for 
useful work. 

I he will and the power to add a score of years to 
a useful life is benevolence almost divine. 

3 d. A technical school is a post-graduate school. In 
this respect it ranks with schools of law, theology and 
medicine. It is only in recent years that law and med¬ 
ical schools have taken a definite stand in regard to 


i7 


the proper preparation for these studies. Parents 
would choose between business, college, or a profession 
for their sons, and medical schools permitted men to 
matriculate without a question as to even a common 
school education. This condition of affairs is now for¬ 
tunately passed—or is rapidly passing away—in the 
so-called learned professions, but it still exists to a 
great degree in technical schools. The reason is 
clear enough. These schools have grown out of the 
works and industrial schools, and their professional 
character is not yet fully recognized. Industrial schools 
train mechanics, technical schools train engineers. 
This distinction finds an apt parallel in training schools 
for nurses, and professional schools for physicians. 
We must not expect the public to discover and insist 
on this distinction ; it must be made by the technical 
schools in setting their qualifications for admission. 

4 th. A technical school aims to teach the relation of 
abstract science to the practical arts. If we examine 
the catalogues of these schools we find a long list of 
subjects—mining, mechanical, and civil engineering, 
metallurgy, chemistry, physics, geology, mineralogy, 
drawing, mathematics, languages, etc.,—and to the list 
might well be added sanitary and electrical engineering. 
All of the studies have a direct bearing on human 
welfare. But the great number of them, with the ever 
widening scope of each, renders the arrangement of a 
course of study very difficult, and we not unfrequently 
find in a course a most heterogeneous collection of stu¬ 
dies whose relation is merely superficial or one of 
sequence Take for instance the course of mining 
engineering as taught in many schools. To obtain the 
degree of “ mining engineer,” the student must have 


i8 

a certain knowledge of geology and topography to 
locate ore-deposits, he must be a mineralogist to de¬ 
termine the occurring minerals, a mining engineer (in 
its narrower sense), to take out the ore, a chemist to 
assay it, a mechanical engineer to build the necessary 
machinery for hoisting and ore-dressing, and a metal¬ 
lurgist to extract the metal from the ore and work it 
into useful forms for the mechanic and civil engineer. 
To all this is often added a course in bookkeeping and 
mining law. It must indeed be a well-rounded man 
who has taken this all in. 

A course of this kind is a survival of the time when 
all that was known on all these subjects taken together 
would not inordinately tax a youthful intellect; but as 
these subjects expanded, each into a science in itself, 
instructors neglected to divide the course into several 
independent courses and went on cramming the stu¬ 
dent to a point of unsafe tension. 

Perhaps no classification that we could make of the 
branches taught in technical schools would meet the 
demands of all students, on the account of the inter¬ 
lacing of the branches. At first sight we think we have 
a natural sequence in the subjects just named, that is, 
geology, mining engineering, mechanical engineering, 
metallurgy and civil engineering, and that we could 
divide this course into two or more courses by drawing 
lines anywhere between these studies. But this would 
make very artificial divisions. Mining engineering is 
not very different from civil engineering; the mathe¬ 
matical basis is the same in both and much of the work 
is the same. In, fact, many of our best mining engineers 
have been educated as civil engineers, and have after¬ 
wards transferred their field of operations from the 


l 9 


surface of the earth to its interior. It is not a very 
long* step from the engineering of construction to the 
engineering of destruction. 

Again, both the mining and civil engineer should 
know a good deal of mechanical engineering, which 
deals with the mechanisms for the utilization of power. 
The metallurgist is primarily a chemist, but the more 
he knows of mechanism and construction the better 
able is he to carry on his work. And so we might go 
on to show that the more a man knew of all these re¬ 
lated branches the better he could perform his special 
work—an argument which would simply go to prove 
the advantage of omniscience. Unfortunate as it is 
in many respects we must be reconciled to the necessity 
of becoming specialists, and to call in other specialists 
to help us. Perhaps the most we can hope for is to be 
an expert in one department and to know enough of 
the related departments to judge of the harmony and 
fitness of the combined work of many heads and 
hands. 

In a general way we may divide technical studies 
into engineering and metallurgy, but a broader and 
better division would be into physics and chemistry; 
under the former subject being arranged those studies 
which have a mathematical basis, and under the latter 
metallurgy and other chemical branches. 

At the risk of overthrowing both classifications it 
must be mentioned that a most useful combination 
course is one in metallurgy, which ignoring all engi¬ 
neering branches, deals with the chemical and physical 
properties of metals and alloys. This is the great vir¬ 
gin field in technology which promises a grand harvest 
of valuable results to him who works it patiently and 


*** 


20 


intelligently. The civil engineer does well to complain 
that the ignorance of the metallurgist with regard to 
the properties of the metals used in construction hin¬ 
ders his progress and introduces great uncertainty into 
his work. 

To the question what should be the method of 
teaching, I would say, 

ist. Negatively—nothing should be taught in the 
schools which can be better taught in the field or shop. 
While this broad proposition must meet with general 
acceptance, there is yet a great diversity of opinion 
where the line should be drawn between shop and 
school, or just how much shop belongs in the school, 
or how much school belongs in the shop. It is not 
my purpose to enter into this discussion at present, 
but it will be admitted by all that, 

2 d. The school rather than the shop is the place for 
finer research and experiment. 

3 d. The subjects taught in the schools being largely 
experimental, and consequently belonging to the 
growing and advancing sciences, it should be the 
object of the teacher not only to give the student the 
present condition of the science, but to identify him 
with its growth. 

As to detailed methods of teaching, it is not well to 
enter too minutely, for this is a matter for the indi¬ 
vidual instructor, who will have, if he is in earnest, 
his own methods based on his own experience or his 
own theories. This personal element we cannot 
eliminate, if we would. And yet there may much 
good come from the discussion by teachers of their 
methods and results. 

Teaching involves three processes— instruction , or 


21 


the imparting of information; education , or the develop¬ 
ment of the mental faculties; and training , or the 
formation of habits of thought and work. Good 
teaching, whether in kindergarten, college, or profes¬ 
sional school, is the happy combination of these three 
processes. In childhood, the element of instruction 
predominates; in colleges, education ; and in profes¬ 
sional schools, training; but no one of these elements 
can be absent in any kind of school without an 
imperfect result. In technical schools there is a good 
deal of general information which must be acquired, 
and a good deal that must be memorized; there is no 
escaping it. There is a certain amount of preliminary 
work which must be done, once for all, without which 
no sure progress can be made, dhere are no short 
cuts to knowledge at this stage. In education, the 
instructor’s work assumes greater delicacy; it should 
be full of suggestiveness and guidance to develop the 
reasoning faculties and guard against their inaccurate 
or desultory action. Training, or the formation of 
habits, is a very different process, and one, the impor¬ 
tance of which is not, I think, fully appreciated. The 
frequent repetition of any action not only enables one 
to do it easily but also to do it automatically. Mus¬ 
cular action is largely automatic. When one slips he 
throws out his arms to keep himself from falling ; 
this is not instinct, it is habit. If he had to consider 
every time he lost his balance how he should restore 
the centre of gravity within the base, he would have 
many a fall which he now avoids. We admire the 
accuracy and precision with which a blacksmith wields 
a sledge, or the dexterity of hand of the accomplished 
musician which transmutes the printed page into 


22 


melody, or the prompt and graceful evolutions of 
soldiers at the word of command:—all this muscular 
exertion is done with scarcely any expenditure of 
nerve force. 

The mind, too, can be trained to think and act in 
defined channels with great saving of power. Consider 
for a moment, how specially trained men look upon 
any object or incident: A jewel may be simply a 
thing of beauty to the ordinary observer, but to the 
mineralogist it is a crystal having a certain color, 
hardness, specific gravity, etc. So does a botanist 
classify a flower, or a geologist a fossil. In like 
manner in the recital of an incident, say a railroad 
accident; an engineer will at once think of the cause, 
a physician of the injured, a lawyer of the damages. 
These thoughts arise automatically, and are the results 
of training. The saving of vital energy which this 
training effects is one of the great economies of life. 

The process of growing old consists in the ossifica¬ 
tion of thought and action into habit. It is obviously 
the duty of a teacher to have an oversight over the 
mental habits that his pupils are forming. A fact or 
a law mislearned can be corrected without much harm 
being done, but slovenly habits of thought, the sub¬ 
stitution of guessing for proving, incomplete experi¬ 
menting with the multiplication of factors of ignorance 
—these are practices which, when confirmed into 
habits, can with difficulty be eradicated. 

Morally, habit is a very good practical substitute for 
purpose, and it may be said, in passing, that moral 
teachers too often overlook the good that could be 
accomplished in training in right thinking and acting. 
It is not an altogether utopian notion that one, for 


2 3 


instance, could form the habit of telling the truth, 
which would serve him in good stead and save his 
moral nature from many an embarrassment. 

It I mistake not, the principal work of a technical 
school should be the training of young men in accurate 
habits of thinking and working. Without this training 
the graduate is slow to adapt himself to new situations. 
The student who has been put through a routine course 
of study, abounding in the use of text-books and in 
the solving of many problems, may be fairly informed 
as to the condition of his profession and may have 
acquired good habits of study, and yet be unfit for 
practical work which involves principles which he has 
not learned. The proper training cannot be given in 
the class room, but must be obtained in laboratories. 

And this is the thought to which I wish to give promi¬ 
nence : that the centre around which should cluster all 
the teaching of a technical school should be physical 
and chemical laboratories, and that the ruling idea of 
the school should be experiment and research. The 
time has now fully come for technical schools to take 
this advanced position in the scientific training of 
engineers and metallurgists. 

The development of the school out of the shop has 
been so gradual that it is somewhat difficult to realize 
that the differentiation is now complete, and that the 
methods which are adapted for industrial schools do 
not fit the professional school. There are those who 
regret the widening of the gap between head-work 
and hand-work, but this regret comes from a misunder¬ 
standing of the situation. Technical schools are not 
intended to teach a young man to puddle iron, to lay 
rails, or clean castings,—useful work, indeed, which he 


24 


can readily learn before he enters the school or after 
he leaves it. We should not declare his education 
imperfect or worthless because he cannot handle a 
rabble or chisel. 

A great difficulty in teaching a growing science is 
that what is taught to-day may be obsolete to-morrow. 
One who has spent four or five years in a technical 
school will realize this when he gets into actual prac¬ 
tice. Ought there not, therefore, to be a system of 
teaching which shall recognize this growth and be 
adapted to it ? To this it may be objected that the 
worst possible preparation for actual work would be 
to give the student the notion of the general instability 
of things, and that he must be on the look-out for the 
latest novelties in his profession. But we need not 
render unstable the attitude of a student by showing 
him that the ground on which he stands moves, and 
that he will be left behind if he does not move with it. 

It has been said (to change the metaphor) that a 
teacher should be abreast of the current of thought 
in his profession. The figure is fortunately chosen in 
that it enables us to point out a grave mistake. He 
should not be abreast of the current, he should be in 
it, irresistibly borne on its surface and adding by his 
weight to its momentum. It is the introduction of the 
student into this current that should form the princi¬ 
pal work of the teacher. The majority of students 
and workers never get into it. This may be the fault 
of the teacher, or it may be that the student is timid 
and prefers to keep up with the current by running 
along its borders. A few succeed in the attempt, but 
the majority give up the tiresome race and stand and 
see the stream go by. The figure illustrates the 


25 


process of acquiring knowledge from books or prac¬ 
tice alone—a process not without value to those whose 
imaginative and questioning faculties are undeveloped, 
and who prefer to take their facts at second-hand. 
But no teacher should be satisfied to let a student take 
this stand until he is convinced that he has not the 
ability and aptitude for original work. The life of the 
collector is a narrower one than that of the dis¬ 
coverer, and the teacher’s duty is to show the more 
excellent way. 

What process of teaching will put the student into 
synchronous motion with the science that he is study¬ 
ing ? Again, I reply, the training of experimental 
laboratories. This training cannot begin too soon, 
it cannot last too long. No special preparation is 
needed for it other than a little preliminary practice 
in the use of apparatus and methods. 1 he student 
should live in the atmosphere of investigation. There 
should be no separation of beginners, advanced pupils 
and professors, but all should work together as lar as 
possible. No teacher is primarily interested in teach¬ 
ing who does not like to have students about him 
when he is experimenting. By this association of 
workers there is a manifold advantage, for each one 
can follow in a general way the work of his neighbors 
and profit likewise by their experience. 

The student should feel as soon as he enters a tech¬ 
nical school that it is a laboratory of research and that 
he is one of the workers. Much patient plodding is 
yet before him in studying text-books and showing he 
understands what he has learned by recitation ; but his 
study is no longer drudgery, for he sees immediately 
its application. I often wonder at the patience of 


26 


youth who devote years of their lives to school-room 
work with quiet faith that their studies will sometime 
have practical use, and who cherish perhaps a furtive 
hope that they may live to discover a new and inter¬ 
esting fact. I wonder, too, at teachers who think that 
a student must not too soon get a notion of his own 
powers lest he should become unmanageable through 
over-confidence. What would we think of a system of 
studying botany which shut up the student for years 
within four walls where he could not see a green thing, 
and supplied him only with dry specimens and pictures 
of flowers and trees, for fear that a glimpse of nature’s 
wealth of growing forms might lead him away from 
their systematic study ? The comparison is scarcely 
overdrawn. In many schools chemical laboratory- 
work is regarded as a preliminary practice for useful 
work hereafter. A certain number of substances— 
simple salts, mixtures more or less complicated, rocks 
and minerals are given to the student to work on, and 
his only interest is to get the correct result, as a boy 
ciphers his sum towards the answer given in the book. 
Such work is depressing and of the nature of a task, 
and it is scarcely a matter of surprise to find, in cases 
where there is an unsuspicious teacher, that the work 
is slighted and the results taken directly from a key 
which the students of one class thoughtfully pass down 
to their successors. The proposition to give to the 
beginner some interest in his work, in the nature of an 
original investigation, which would yield results having 
value in themselves, is one, I fear, which the ordinary 
student would receive with surprise, and one which 
many a teacher would consider a sure method of leading 
a student away from the sober studies he came to school 


2 7 


to pursue. Those who thus reason don’t understand 
the proposition, or they have never tried the experi¬ 
ment. It is not proposed that a student should neglect 
to acquaint himself with the fundamental principles of 
the science he is studying in his endeavor to get new 
facts. No more harmful suggestion could be made 
than this, that the object of one’s studies is principally 
to discover something. There are plenty of people 
doing just this thing—shiftless, unprofitable workers, 
always on the verge of a great discovery which is to 
revolutionize things generally. 

In the system proposed the development of this class 
of discoverers is impossible. No one knows the value 
of a fact like him who has secured one for himself— 
isolated it, weighed it, measured it; and no one 
knows and feels the harmony, and beauty, and power in 
a law like him who has collected many facts and seen 
them crystallize into transparent truth. No one is less 
likely to be led into error than he who has been trained 
to prove all things and to hold fast that which is true. 

The notion has considerable prevalence that discove¬ 
ries in physical science come in the nature of revela¬ 
tions, through specially inspired channels. I doubt if 
many students of engineering and chemistry look for¬ 
ward to a career of investigation and discovery, unless 
they should have a kind of “ call ” to the work. And 
yet if we go into any chemist’s or physicist’s laboratory 
we can hear of thousands of unsolved problems which 
are merely waiting for patient, thoughtful, trained 
workers. 

It should be the chief object of the technical school 
to give this training. It belongs in the school and can 
be better given there than elsewhere. The probabil- 


28 


ity that a student will ever have the opportunity to get 
this training after he leaves the school is very small. 
Practice he will get enough of, but the ability to thor¬ 
oughly investigate statements and processes does not 
come with the daily practice of an art. It is not merely 
the skilled hand and quick eye that is needed, it is the 
trained mind which not only gets at the truth but shakes 
off error. 

This process is often spoken of, figuratively, as ques¬ 
tioning nature, who always replies promptly and clearly 
and without hesitation or reserve. How is it then that 
so many of her answers appear enigmatical and con¬ 
fusing? Simply because the question is not properly 
put. To continue the figure—investigation may be 
called the art of putting questions ; and this art very 
few people possess even though they may be endowed 
with a prying inquisitiveness. Nature is not a gossip, 
does not speak until spoken to, does not tell more than 
is asked of her. But it is a process, I insist, that can 
be taught, and it is much better that one should learn 
it properly than depend on the chance of picking it up. 
Things which are picked up are generally imperfect or 
rusty. 

While the object of the method we are advocating 
for technical schools is not primarily the discovery of 
facts, but rather the training which this method of 
investigation gives, yet it will be admitted that a large 
part of modern engineering or metallurgical practice is 
based on facts discovered in physical and chemical 
laboratories. 

Let us look for a moment at that greatest of all 
modern inventions—the Bessemer process—an inven¬ 
tion which has made travel safer and more rapid, 


29 


and cheapened all the necessaries of life. There 
never was a great discovery which was made known 
by its author in a more perfect and complete form than 
this; and yet for some time after it was in successful 
use very little was known of the chemical nature of 
the process. But the chemists were soon busily 
engaged with it, and the work which has been devoted 
to the explanation of the process the world over would 
fill many a ponderous volume. 

Without this work the process would have made but 
slow progress, for unguided experiment would have 
been long in discovering what irons could be used and 
what irons could not. Chemical analysis soon was 
able to prescribe a formula for the pig iron adapted to 
the process and to predict just how each iron would 
behave. So completely is the process now understood 
that the softest iron and the hardest steel can be made 
by it at will. But the chemists did not stop here. 
Phosphorus was the element which had given the most 
annoyance in the process, and for a time it seemed 
definitely proved that only the pure ores—those free 
or almost free from phosphorus—could ever be used 
in the process. But the chemist is fertile in resources 
and a tireless worker, and to-day we have a variation 
of the Bessemer process, which ranks as a new industry, 
and the corner-stone of the process is phosphorus. I 
know of no more interesting chapter in iron metallurgy 
than that which traces the development of this “basic 
process,” or one which better illustrates the value of 
chemical investigation in industrial operations. This 
is but one instance. Chemical analysis is now indis¬ 
pensable in all metallurgical operations, and, in fact, the 




30 

chemist’s work is at the foundation of all trade and 
commerce. 

The physical laboratory should command our atten¬ 
tion equally with the chemical. Here is studied the 
relation of the molecular structure of metals to strains, 
heat, electricity, etc., and when the results obtained in 
the physical laboratory are correlated with those from 
the chemical laboratory we have the necessary data to 
guide us in the preparation of the metals. There is 
no doubt that the time will come, and many of us will 
live to see it, when iron and steel will be made on a 
formula like a physician’s prescription. We are not 
quite ready for it yet, for there are too many unknown 
quantities entering into the problem. When the schools 
establish laboratories for research the necessary facts 
will soon be forthcoming, and our amazement will be 
great that we groped so long in the dark when the 
light was so near at hand. 

The physical work on iron and steel which has been 
done in the present generation is enormous, and much 
of it has been work which could have been done in the 
physical laboratories of technical schools. Recall the 
knowledge we now have of the properties of hard and 
soft steel, of the effect of punching, hammering, and 
other mechanical treatment, of the fatigue and wear of 
metals, and of their adaptation to special uses. 

We might talk by the hour of the subjects which 
could be advantageously and appropriately investigated 
in the school laboratories, in electricity, pneumatics, 
hydraulics, etc., but enough has been said to indicate 
that laboratory research lies at the basis of all progress 
in the arts. 

To resume. The ideal technical school is one which 


is entirely distinct from the industrial school and is 
thoroughly professional in its character. Qualification 
for admission should be a preliminary course in college 
or scientific school, or its equivalent, and the student 
should at once begin work in the laboratories. His 
work should have the double object of giving him 
practice in manipulation and an insight into the methods 
of research. He should be interested in the results 
obtained, which he should regard as positive contribu¬ 
tions to accurate knowledge, even thpugh they should 
be negative with respect to the particular investigation. 

I know of no work of a teacher which requires 
more delicacy, firmness, and sympathy than guiding 
a student in work of this kind. Class teaching is here 
out of the question, and the pupil must get his inspi¬ 
ration directly from the master. He may have to 
encourage by practical help those who are disappointed 
in the results of their work or who grow weary in 
waiting. He may have to discourage those who are 
over-confident and hasty in anticipating results by 
allowing them to go astray until they find themselves 
hopelessly involved in difficulties. He must watch 
carefully the mental attitude of the student to find out 
whether he is striving to prove a theory or whether he 
is simply desirous of discovering the truth. It is a 
grand work for one who is fitted for it and whose life 
is given to it. No teacher in other departments sees 
so quickly the result of his training or is so sure of his 
reward. 

The desire of many teachers to bring their pupils to 
their own standard induces them to lead the students 
over the ground which they themselves have gone. 
This is clearly a faulty method. A wise instructor will 


32 


take a student quickly through the past so as to enable 
him to understand the present, but he will not let the 
student linger too long. We would not undervalue 
the work of the historian, but we would not have this 
work supersede the process of making history. The 
collection of knowledge and its systematic arrangement 
is valuable work, but it must soon come to an end if 
knowledge does not increase. 

Technical schools should also offer opportunity for 
its graduates to continue their work. Fellowships 
should be founded to encourage graduates to remain 
in the school and aid in the work of instruction, for the 
system advocated necessitates a large number of 
teachers and overseers. Provisions should also be 
made for the temporary accommodation of experts 
who wish to make special investigations. Busy prac¬ 
titioners are seldom able to have well-appointed labora¬ 
tories of their own, and would rejoice if the chance 
were offered them of working in those of the school. 

Will it be said that this scheme savors more of a 
school of pure science than of science applied to the 
arts? Far from it;—it is intended to be intensely 
practical. It is impossible to draw any sharp line 
between pure and applied science, for the science 
which is abstract to-day may be embodied in a patent 
to-morrow. Modern electrical practice had its rise in 
Franklin’s kite-flying and Galvani’s diversions with 
frogs. The methods of experimentation are the same 
in both, but a wise teacher will confine a student’s 
work to those subjects which have an obvious bearing 
on the practical arts. 

The ignorance of the graduates of technical schools 
of the simplest practical procedures in industrial works 


33 


has often exposed them to ridicule, and many schools, 
in consequence, have added work-shops and furnaces 
and engines to their equipment to give the students a 
general idea of machines and tools before sending 
them forth to work. This combined course of study and 
practice has earnest advocates among those who have 
tried it. And yet these school-shops and school-fur¬ 
naces would never, I think, have been built if it had been 
understood at the start that the graduate did not pre¬ 
tend to know anything about the routine of the shop, 
and that he expected to learn his trade like any one 
else. Playing practice is not only useless—it is hurtful. 
If the student enters the works with mere book knowl¬ 
edge he spends considerable time in trying to see the 
bearing of his studies on the practice of the art. It 
left to his own resources it is about an even chance 
whether he succeeds in this attempt or gets discour¬ 
aged with practice (and perhaps takes up teaching), or 
throws aside his books and regrets the time he spent 
over them. The saying that one must un\z arn, when 
he begins to work, all that he learned in the schools 
has done much harm, but there are not a few practical 
illustrations of the saying. One might as well say 
that arithmetic was all very well in a school, but for 
good, square, accurate calculation a man had better 
confine himself to counting on his fingers or notching 
a stick. He who begins work with some preliminary 
training in the school-shop has, it is true, a better start, 
and there is perhaps less likelihood of his being dis¬ 
couraged by unfamiliar surroundings. 

Very different is it with him who enters the mill or 
machine-shop after a long experience in physical and 
chemical research. His trained mind and senses detect 


34 


relations and incongruities of which another would not 
be conscious. He has already learned to trust his own 
observation and judgment and to know their limita¬ 
tions. If a process is imperfect he quickly decides in 
what direction investigation is needed; he loses no 
time in fruitless experiment; he knows when he has 
enough facts to form a theory of causation and when 
he has enough to determine definitely the cause. He 
is not misled by apparent economies; he is not satis¬ 
fied until he knows the precise efficiency of a machine ; 
he gives “ undetermined elements” no chance to play 
important roles, for he convinces himself of their 
presence or absence. Far from this training in inves¬ 
tigation making him an impracticable theorist, he is 
fairly hungry for facts. It makes little difference to 
him whether or not he ever handled a steam engine in 
the school or worked at a lathe; this is experience 
which he can quickly gain if his inclination or duty 
calls him to this work. 

This advanced position which we would give to 
technical schools may render it desirable that the 
industrial or shop-schools should be multiplied. At all 

events, it is well to maintain that there are schools_ 

call them by which name you will—which give the 
higher professional training in practical science as dis¬ 
tinguished from shop-training. Let him who will fit 
himself for a master mechanic get his training in the 
industrial or shop-school, and him who wishes to be an 
engineer get his training in a technical or professional 
school, but let neither one complain that he did not get 
in one school the kind of training peculiar to the other. 
Fortunate is the man who has the time and means and 
desire to go through both these schools. 


35 


The equipment of a school of research will naturally 
consist mainly in apparatus designed for special inves¬ 
tigation. There will be, of course, the usual apparatus 
for accurate measuring and weighing in the routine 
processes of physics and chemistry, but there will con¬ 
stantly arise the necessity for the construction of special 
apparatus, and this is in itself a great assistance in the 
training of students, who not unfrequently get the idea 
that the bright apparatus which fills the cases of college 
collections are the working tools or machines of the 
physicist, when they are merely his apparatus of illus¬ 
tration. 

An investigating mind never grows old. We speak 
often of old-fashioned engineers, men not “up to the 
times,” men who distrust modern ideas and hold to the 
methods of a past generation. These men were “up 
to the times” once, but because they simply learned 
the practice of their day and failed to catch the spirit of 
its growth, have been left behind as practice advanced. 
There is no danger that the student trained in research 
will ever get “ behind the times.” It should not be the 
aim of any teaching to put old heads on young shoul¬ 
ders, but rather to keep young the heads which rest 
on old shoulders. 

We can well understand the anxiety of the pains¬ 
taking teacher who wishes to give his pupils as large 
an outfit of useful facts as possible; and yet if we 
reflect on the immense accumulation of facts in prac¬ 
tical science, what does it matter whether the student 
gets a few more or less when the time of acquiring 
these facts might be devoted to learning the methods 
by which these facts were discovered? It would be 
poor policy to devote time to the practice of forging 


36 


nails one by one, instead of becoming familiar with a 
machine which makes them by thousands. 

It cannot fairly be said that the development of 
technical schools into schools of research would remove 
them farther from practice of the arts which they were 
instituted to foster. It is true there has been a break 
between the works and the school, but the gap has 
widened only to be narrowed again in the formation 
of a new and closer union. To make this union more 
complete the schools should be prepared to undertake 
practical investigations for the works. It is fitting that 
the schools should undertake such investigation for 
the professors are trained to the work and devote 
their lives to it. Many of the experiments made at 
works are imperfect, incomplete, or even inaccurate, 
because the person in charge of them does not know 
how to go about this kind of work, or is busy with 
other things. 

The condition under which the school should under¬ 
take investigations for the works are: 

i st. The subject should give fair promise of develop¬ 
ing new and valuable information. 

2d. This information, when obtained, should be 
published by the school. 

3d. There should be no charge for the service. 

If the schools did reliable work there would be no 
lack of material for investigation, and it would not be 
long before the supposed benefit derived from business 
secrets would disappear in the general diffusion of 
information. 

Spontaneous evolution develops both useful and 
worthless variations; natural selection determines the 


37 


survival of the fittest of them. Evolution by design, 
limits the production of useless forms and is thus 
more economical of power and time. Empirical 
development in the arts may aptly be compared with 
spontaneous evolution, while scientific research con¬ 
trols and guides the development. The technical 
school should be a centre of evolution by design. 

Engineers have in late years implored Congress on 
behalf of science, on behalf of the welfare of fifty 
millions of people, to establish a board for testing, on 
a large scale, iron, and steel, and other materials of 
construction, that our buildings may be more secure, 
our bridges safer, and our boilers less liable to explode. 
After a brief and useful career the first United States 
Board expired, and no favorable legislation has been 
obtained to revive it. The general arguments urged 
in favor of the government undertaking this work, are 
that the outlay necessary would be more than most 
individuals or corporations could afford, and that busi¬ 
ness interests would prevent a combination of manu¬ 
facturers for the sake of so beneficent an object. 

Is it too much to expect that some friend of the 
higher technical training will be found to endow a 
testing department in a technical school ? This is 
the proper place for accurate experiment, for here 
we have the men trained to the work. Removed from 
all the disturbing elements of trade, from the influence 
of politics, and from the jealousies of engineers, the 
testing department of a technical school could, by 
reason of its permanence and independence, do work 
which would find universal acceptance. I think the 
s uggestion worth the consideration of the Alumni of 
Lehigh University. 


3 § 


I have sketched what I regard an ideal technical 
school. But the sketch is only the embodiment of 
tendencies plainly to be observed in our most advanced 
schools. The course which Lehigh University has 
always pursued in maintaining a high standard of 
scholarship, the work of research of her instructors 
and students, the increase in her great library and the 
extension of her laboratories, indicate that she is 
advancing steadily and surely towards the realization 
of this idea—that technical schools should be an 
assemblage of workers in experimental science. 

What, it may well be asked, is the meaning, and 
what is to be the result of all this restless activity in 
the arts ? The mechanical engineer studies the phe¬ 
nomena of combustion, the properties of vapors, and 
makes his mechanism more sensitive and accurate that 
less coal may be used to drive his machinery. He is 
saving power. 1 he chemist works on the crude ores 
and rocks, and on vegetable and animal products, to 
extract as completely as possible the substances useful 
to man. He is saving material. The engineer makes 
the rough places smooth, hews paths in the solid rock, 
and hangs road-ways in the air. He is saving time. 
Where does man learn this lesson of economy? 
Nature appears to him as a spendthrift, counting 
material by worlds, prodigal of unlimited power, and 
reckoning time as a moment bounded by eternities. 
Why does man spare and store ? Is he better or 
happier for it? Suffice it, in answer, to say that 
he obeys an instinct of his nature as irresistible as 
that of self-preservation. It is, in fact, for his own 
protection that he accumulates wealth in its various 


39 


forms of substance, power, and time. We may not 
sit in judgment on this instinct and call it selfish,— 
it is for the use of his wealth that man must give 
account. 

But we surely cannot fail to recognize the progress 
that man has made in the beneficent use of power. 
Are there not evidences on every side that many find 
greater pleasure in the unselfish use of wealth than in 
its acquisition, and are we not justified in expecting a 
time when man shall use his power only for good ? 

But is this restless activity never to cease ? Are we 
progressing towards a millennium when the very earth 
shall tremble with the workers in its mines, when its 
surface shall be a tracery of rails and wires, when the 
roar and clatter of machinery shall deafen the ear and 
the smoke of countless chimneys obscure the light of 
the sun ? Is there never to be rest from toil ? It is a 
short and imperfect vision that thus divines the future. 
Each form of power advances to its own extinction in 
giving birth to subtler forms of power. Each mech¬ 
anism is in time abandoned to give place to more 
effective machines. Would you realize what power 
man has grasped, go to the forge and watch him as 
he, single-handed, directs the mighty hammer which, 
as if half ashamed of its great strength, coaxes the 
yielding iron into shape ! 

It scarcely needs illustration to prove that the tend¬ 
ency of material progress is toward the replacing of 
the mediate by immediate use of power. Perhaps few 
of the toilers recognize this tendency, but the more 
thoughtful and far-seeing look ahead to the promised 
day when, “ if man shall say to the mountain, ‘ Be thou 


40 


removed and be thou cast into the sea,’ it shall be 
done.” 

This kind of faith and power, we are told, cometh 
only with patient, self-sacrificing seeking. It is a 
favorite figure which represents man wresting from 
nature her secrets and treasures by dint of persistence 
and prowess. Nature is never conquered by defiance; 
she surrenders only to those who first surrender to 
her. It is the victory of obedience which man gains 
over nature, and it is the patient seeker after the truths 
which she carefully guards who is rewarded by her 
bounty and whose commands she obeys. 

We smile as we read of the conquering hero of old, 
who, elated with his victories over man, commanded 
the waters of the sea to obey him. And yet we say 
to the lightning, “ take thou my message and carry it 
to yon distant cityand scarce have we uttered our 
command when we hear the voice of the fleet mes¬ 
senger—“thy servant brings thee answer.” 

The tendency of both material and spiritual progress 
may be summed up in the one word knowledge , for it 
is only perfect knowledge that renders perfect goodness 
possible. Is there a nobler career for a young man 
to select than one devoted to the discovery of nature’s 
laws, and their application to the good and happiness 
of man ? And is not this the life of the miner, who puts 
nature’s reserved wealth into circulation; and that of 
the chemist, whose touch transmutes into value the 
dust of the earth ; and that of the engineer, who, in 
annihilating space, makes one all nations of the earth ? 

It is well for us at times to take our thoughts from 
our own special and partial work to contemplate a 


4i 


broader horizon which includes with our work the 
work of others, and to see the harmony which arises 
from the fitting of related truths. Sometimes we 
think we get a glimpse in this harmony of a part of a 
great design, which makes our souls long for the 
time when in the perfect knowledge of God’s laws, 
we shall have a revelation of His purpose. 






















































































































